Like Magic, he's back!

Sporting News, The, Feb 12, 1996 by Dave Kindred

He's the oldest guy in the league who isn't a backup center. He's also carrying Schwarzeneggerish upperbody bulk for the first time. So Magic Johnson carefully chose the moment of his latest comeback. The sly old warrior with bad knees waited until the season was half over. Then he came back as the Lakers began a 24-day stretch in which they would play only nine games and just one out of town. Good thinking.

Good thinking, too, on the business side. The sly old marketer came back in time for Michael Jordan's only visit to Los Angeles this season, a national photo op the week before the NBA All-Star Game just in case someone could pull strings for him. No surprise, either, that he came back just before the sales launch of a basketball shoe bearing his name. And he is campaigning for a spot on the Olympic team that will play in Atlanta just before he opens a movie complex there.

As carefully as the chore been done only time can answer the really important questions about Johnson's return: Can he get his famously aching knees to do a young man's work? And even if he succeeds at that, might he make the same decision he made as a coach, that the game today just isn't any fun?

Surely he had no fun against the Bulls his second night back when that gorgeous whirlwind of a team made him look flatfooted, forlorn and foolish. Just as surely, it will be hard for an old man who hasn't played NBA basketball in 4 1/2 years to play four games every six nights, to go on the road for back-to-back games, to know that the game he once played magically he now must play by memory. He coached only 16 games in the spring of 1994 before he quit and insulted his Lakers players by calling them selfish, lazy and uncommitted. Now, hell have fun?

We can hope so. We can welcome him back with a smile of our own. We can hope it works out wonderfully. We can hope he plays well, makes the Lakers a contender, gives us that smile a thousand times and, when he chooses to leave the game again, leaves it feeling as good about himself as he felt coming back.

His life changed October 25, 1991. He was told he was infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Two weeks later, Johnson announced the discovery and retired because that was the best advice available.

But for reasons at once so simple the world knows them and so complex the man himself might not know them, Johnson could not stay away. Beethoven needed music even when he could not hear it. Johnson needed basketball even when he could not play it.

Since that day in '91, Johnson has been adrift, uncertain of what to do and when to do it. He said the right thing. He would use his fame against AIDS. And while the announcement of his HIV infection served the public well, he has done little activist work. Appointed to a presidential commission on AIDS, he soon quit. A book written under his name added nothing to our knowledge of AIDS. Without shame or apology, his autobiography detailed the recklessness of his sexual promiscuity.

Now, while medical personnel wear goggles and gloves to protect themselves against HIV, Johnson comes back to a game violent enough to spill his blood. To anyone wondering if he is still reckless after all these years, to anyone worried about being infected by his blood, Johnson has said, "I'm playing. They need to deal with it." And: "Everybody has been educated. They know that if they get hit by me, it won't be the end of the world."

Adrift, lusting for center stage, he always comes back to basketball. Invited to play in the '92 NBA All-Star Game, he was its MVP. That summer he helped win an Olympic gold medal. That fall, planning to rejoin the Lakers, he gave it up when criticized by frightened players.

In the spring of '94, he coached the Lakers for 16 games before quitting to barnstorm with his own pickup team. Thanks to the largess of Jerry Buss, the owner, Johnson bought 5 percent of the Lakers. As to when he first thought of coming back to play this time, evidence suggests he never intended to stay away.

Almost daily, he played basketball with college and pro players. Weightlifting added 25 pounds to his upper body. As for the HIV, Johnson apparently had become what researchers call "a cronic non-progressor," a patient in whom the virus is present and causing no trouble. As for those frightened players, they now are silent or in agreement with the Suns' Charles Barkley, who says of Magic:

"I don't want to have sex with him, but I don't mind playing against him. I don't think he should have quit in the first place."

Sir Charles says he wasn't surprised that Johnson came back with a near triple-double the first night out. "He understands the game. Larry Bird could come back, too, because he understands the game."

With Johnson, are the Lakers a contender? Barkley says, "We welcome him back, but he'll have no impact on the West. The Lakers are not one of the top teams at all."

Of those who would debate that last point, Hubie Brown gets first call. Once a coach and now the NBA's best television commentator, Brown says, "The West is wide open. Houston, Seattle and Phoenix will be there. (The Lakers) proved a year ago that if they could make free throws they'd be there, too. And now, with Magic, they have a whole new look."